Warren suggests Divisions could be gone when USC/UCLA join

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Panthadad2 said:
Pods are fine without a championship game. The pods would be meaningless for deciding a championship game.
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Correct. They are scheduling pods and scheduling that way eliminates the possibility of 3 unbeaten teams.
It eliminates the possibility of a 3 way tie for first with no logical tiebreak
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The whole enterprise is bad for the Gophers - with super programs like tOSU, Michigan, Penn State, UCLA and USC, not to mention Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois now, and a likely improvement at Nebraska, the Gophers will be lost in the middle. This greed that is driving football today is going to end up creating a pro-league of about 40-50 teams and the rest of the field dropping to a more old-fashioned student athlete, school-first outlook. The 12-team national playoff is terrible, too - 4 teams sit out the first round, conference champions are in regardless of ranking in polls, etc., loads of complaining from fans is inevitable.
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Lol in your book the gophers have been left behind for Illinois and Wisconsin already?
 

Panthadad2 said:
That's true, but I don't think that will happen. USC and UCLA didn't join the conference to play Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota (and other west teams) every year, then only play MI/OSU/PSU once a decade.
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USC and UCLA did not move to the B1G to play the big boys, they moved for the big bucks
 

Some guy said:
Correct. They are scheduling pods and scheduling that way eliminates the possibility of 3 unbeaten teams.
It eliminates the possibility of a 3 way tie for first with no logical tiebreak
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No. 2x8-team divisions accomplish this.

Pods of 4x4 make 3-way ties likely to be very frequent.
 



East/West appears to have officially 1 more year per the Athletic:

theathletic.com

Big Ten sticking with divisions in 2023: Sources

The Big Ten plans to play one more time with the East-West divisions and configure a new model when USC and UCLA come in 2024, per sources.
theathletic.com theathletic.com
 


Goldmember said:
And there’s about a coin-toss chance they just keep them beyond next season too.
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The summary indicates they will "configure a new model in 2024". I don't read that as a "coin-toss chance" East-West sticks around.

I interpret it as "snow ball's chance in hades".

It will be Division-less. It would take a massive sea change, to remain East-West.
 
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I really hope divisions remain in some form. I think they need to be rebalanced (and maybe even rebalanced on a regular interval of 5-10 years). But the idea of having Michigan-OSU play at the end of the year and then again in the title game the next week most years is boring.

If you dump divisions you have to drop the title game too.
 



mnsportsgeek said:
I really hope divisions remain in some form. I think they need to be rebalanced (and maybe even rebalanced on a regular interval of 5-10 years). But the idea of having Michigan-OSU play at the end of the year and then again in the title game the next week most years is boring.

If you dump divisions you have to drop the title game too.
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Could be fixed by moving the Michigan-OSU game to a different week.

Last year it would have been a rematch between the two, but that's rare. Even when they were in different divisions it didn't happen. I think it would have only been possible 1 other year since the East-West were formed. Saying that, looks like this year would also be a rematch.

A rematch last year would have been less boring than the pounding the Wolverines gave the Hawkeyes.

USC/UCLA entering means there are 2 more teams that have a chance to get the 2nd berth in the Big 10 Title game.

The Title game going forward will likely have a Bye at stake in the CFP. It will be even more relevant no matter who participates.
 
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Ope3 said:
Could be fixed by moving the Michigan-OSU game to a different week.

Last year it would have been a rematch between the two, but that's rare. Even when they were in different divisions it didn't happen. I think it would have only been possible 1 other year since the East-West were formed. Saying that, looks like this year would also be a rematch.

A rematch last year would have been less boring than the pounding the Wolverines gave the Hawkeyes.

USC/UCLA entering means there are 2 more teams that have a chance to get the 2nd berth in the Big 10 Title game.

The Title game going forward will likely have a Bye at stake in the CFP. It will be even more relevant no matter who participates.
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Michigan has also been historically terrible the last 10+ years in comparison. That seems to be reversing.

I would be in favor of eliminating rivalry week. Spread them out over the course of the season.
 

2023 schedules are supposed to be out this week.

One issue with no division is the tiebreakers that go into the championship game. The teams with the best permanent crossovers will always have an advantage in strength of schedule if that's a tiebreaker.

Say two teams tie behind tOSU and one's loss is to tOSU, I assume they will get the nod over the other team when strength of schedule comes into play. How many common opponents will teams have?
 

mnsportsgeek said:
I really hope divisions remain in some form. I think they need to be rebalanced (and maybe even rebalanced on a regular interval of 5-10 years). But the idea of having Michigan-OSU play at the end of the year and then again in the title game the next week most years is boring.

If you dump divisions you have to drop the title game too.
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You can have a title game without divisions. That rule change happened recently and that's why this whole discussion of removing divisions is being entertained.
 



MaxyJR1 said:
2023 schedules are supposed to be out this week.

One issue with no division is the tiebreakers that go into the championship game. The teams with the best permanent crossovers will always have an advantage in strength of schedule if that's a tiebreaker.

Say two teams tie behind tOSU and one's loss is to tOSU, I assume they will get the nod over the other team when strength of schedule comes into play. How many common opponents will teams have?
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I would assume on the tiebreaker it would be a question of which teams had the strongest wins, versus "did you lose to OSU or did you lose to Michigan State?"
 

Face The Facts said:
I would assume on the tiebreaker it would be a question of which teams had the strongest wins, versus "did you lose to OSU or did you lose to Michigan State?"
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Strongest win is going to be contingent on who opponents locked games are.

There needs to be some sort of regular rotation or it’s going to be a boondoggle

I think they’ll have “scheduling groups” but no divisions. Aka divisions where the divisional winner isn’t guaranteed a spot in the championship.
Legends and leaders.
Legends is schedule group A + UCLA and Rutgers
Leaders is schedule group B + USC and Maryland
UCLA locks with USC, Maryland locks with Rutgers

But they don’t talk about legends and leaders. They just do it and pick top two. Done deal
 

Face The Facts said:
You can have a title game without divisions. That rule change happened recently and that's why this whole discussion of removing divisions is being entertained.
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That was just my opinion. I wasn’t implying the NCAA rule still existed. I think what the Big 12 is doing is stupid, but their hand is forced because our stupid playoff system basically requires it due to the lack of auto bids.
 

Ope3 said:
The summary indicates they will "configure a new model in 2024". I don't read that as a "coin-toss chance" East-West sticks around.

I interpret it as "snow ball's chance in hades". It will be Division-less. It would take a massive sea change.
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Correct.

I would guess it will be this, to start out in 2024:
- 16 teams
- 9 conf games
- no divisions
- 3 locked in annual games
- the remaining 6 conf games cycle through the remaining 12 conf teams, bi-annually
- there will be some framework of rules-guidelines for selecting the two “best” teams to play in the conf championship game
 

Don’t think we’ll get Michigan yearly, that’s just fine. Once every two years is plenty.

Should get Iowa and Wisc yearly.

Not sure if it would be Neb or one of the California schools for the third yearly.
 

Just add another game to the schedule and give the academics done new funding do they 🤐
 

Gophers_4life said:
Correct.

I would guess it will be this, to start out in 2024:
- 16 teams
- 9 conf games
- no divisions
- 3 locked in annual games
- the remaining 6 conf games cycle through the remaining 12 conf teams, bi-annually
- there will be some framework of rules-guidelines for selecting the two “best” teams to play in the conf championship game
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Maybe I'm wrong, but from reading the article and logic, I don't see a whole lot of push for 3 "locked in annual games". It's really only Iowa that wants that as they have what they deem 3 rivals (Minn, Wisc & Neb).

Of the rest of the Current 16 teams (as of 2024) it breaks down:

TWO:
Minnesota (Iowa & Wisc)
Wisconsin (Minn & Iowa)
Michigan (Mich St & Oh St)

ONE:
USC (UCLA)
UCLA (USC)
Nebraska (Iowa)
Northwestern (ILL)
Illinois (NW)
Purdue (Ind)
Ind (Pur)
Michigan St (Mich)
Ohio St (Mich)

NONE:
Penn St
Maryland
Rutgers

The article states that Penn St has zero preference for annual rivals. Seems crazy to make them have 3 pre-determined opponents just because Iowa wants to have 3.

Lock in the rivals. Just try to balance out everything else as best as possible. If the Gophers only play a certain team (say Indiana) once every 3 years or twice every 5. So be it.
 
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Ope3 said:
Maybe I'm wrong, but from reading the article and logic, I don't see a whole lot of push for 3 "locked in annual games". It's really only Iowa that wants that as they have what they deem 3 rivals (Minn, Wisc & Neb).

Of the rest of the Current 16 teams (as of 2024) it breaks down:

TWO:
Minnesota (Iowa & Wisc)
Wisconsin (Minn & Iowa)
Michigan (Mich St & Oh St)

ONE:
USC (UCLA)
UCLA (USC)
Nebraska (Iowa)
Northwestern (ILL)
Illinois (ILL)
Purdue (Ind)
Ind (Pur)
Michigan St (Mich)
Ohio St (Mich)

NONE:
Penn St
Maryland
Rutgers

The article states that Penn St has zero preference for annual rivals. Seems crazy to make them have 3 pre-determined opponents just because Iowa wants to have 3.

Lock in the rivals. Just try to balance out everything else as best as possible. If the Gophers only play a certain team (say Indiana) once every 3 years or twice every 5. So be it.
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Just because a game is yearly doesn’t make it a rivalry. We just had Maryland locked in for six years.

If they can figure out a system that works with different numbers, fine. But I know for sure it works if each team plays three other teams every year with three conf games and then used the remaining six conf games to cycle through the remaining 12 teams every two years.
 

Gophers_4life said:
Just because a game is yearly doesn’t make it a rivalry. We just had Maryland locked in for six years.

If they can figure out a system that works with different numbers, fine. But I know for sure it works if each team plays three other teams every year with three conf games and then used the remaining six conf games to cycle through the remaining 12 teams every two years.
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If it's not a "rivalry" then I don't see the point of making it yearly. Very often/periodically to me works just fine for any match-up that isn't one of the rival games that I previously mentioned.

Nobody should have to be saddled with playing Ohio St yearly, except Michigan and that's because they want to. Any other school, coach or fanbase would want no part of having to play the Buckeyes annually. The system would not work for those programs.

Conversely, nobody should get the benefit of playing bottom feeders annually, "just cuz".

All I really care about in terms of fairness is that everyone gets the same amount of home games if it stays at 9 Conference contests. Either alternate 5/4 every year or at least within a 4 year time span, get 2 years with 5.

Also, as it stands if some elaborate system is implemented (ie 3 protected rivals and rotate the others) that absolutely works "perfectly' for a 16 team league, what are the odds that the Big 10 remains at that number of members for the foreseen future? Dang small. It would have to be blown up and another perfect system would have to be invented.

Just like the last perfect system that started way back in 2014.
 
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mnsportsgeek said:
Michigan has also been historically terrible the last 10+ years in comparison. That seems to be reversing.

I would be in favor of eliminating rivalry week. Spread them out over the course of the season.
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And it could reverse the other way in short order if Coach Khaki Harbaugh goes the NFL as he flirted with last year.
 

Ope3 said:
If it's not a "rivalry" then I don't see the point of making it yearly. Very often/periodically to me works just fine for any match-up that isn't one of the rival games that I previously mentioned.

Nobody should have to be saddled with playing Ohio St yearly, except Michigan and that's because they want to. Any other school, coach or fanbase would want no part of having to play the Buckeyes annually. The system would not work for those programs.

Conversely, nobody should get the benefit of playing bottom feeders annually, "just cuz".

All I really care about in terms of fairness is that everyone gets the same amount of home games if it stays at 9 Conference contests. Either alternate 5/4 every year or at least within a 4 year time span, get 2 years with 5.

Also, as it stands if some elaborate system is implemented (ie 3 protected rivals and rotate the others) that absolutely works "perfectly' for a 16 team league, what are the odds that the Big 10 remains at that number of members for the foreseen future? Dang small. It would have to be blown up and another perfect system would have to be invented.

Just like the last perfect system that started way back in 2014.
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I suppose you could try to "fairly" match up yearly teams based on the last X years of performance, rankings, etc. Something more reasonable than just random could be done.

IE, you could ask each school their top 5 preferred yearly opponents, and try to match them up best as possible based on that. One obvious caveat is that you don't want to match up the Eastern teams with the California teams.

I don't think it's barely any effort to implement the system I'm talking about. I agree that they could easily go to 20-24, but not sure it will happen soon. I think when ACC starts getting closer to the end of their GoR in the 2030's, maybe we'll get more movement.
 

Ope3 said:
The summary indicates they will "configure a new model in 2024". I don't read that as a "coin-toss chance" East-West sticks around.

I interpret it as "snow ball's chance in hades".
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Sure. And congress will fix the underfunding of Social Security in 2024 too. It’s going to be a great year.
 

Some guy said:
Lol in your book the gophers have been left behind for Illinois and Wisconsin already?
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Wisconsin has been a top flight program since Alavarez in the 90s - no reason to think they won't continue at that level. Illinois, with the huge Chicago area to recruit in, looks to be the next Wisconsin. They've made huge improvement in just two years and throttled us both years.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Wisconsin has been a top flight program since Alavarez in the 90s - no reason to think they won't continue at that level. Illinois, with the huge Chicago area to recruit in, looks to be the next Wisconsin. They've made huge improvement in just two years and throttled us both years.
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Michigan State made a huge improvement in their year 2, last season. This season, not as much.

We'll see
 

The East-West regional divisions should be saved and sticking USC and UCLA (ugh) in the West would do that and balance the two. Northwestern or Illinois could be moved to the East. Regional loyalties are important and make sense. That is the century-old basis for the existing conferences which are now being cannibilized and destroyed.
 

https://theathletic.com/3732180/2022/10/26/big-ten-2023-schedule/

When USC and UCLA join the league in 2024, Big Ten and school officials not only will discuss its structure but the number of permanent opponents. The likely outcome is either three designated rivals and playing the other 12 schools twice every four years, or two rivals with a seven-game/11-year rotation.

@Ope3

Assume you'd choose the latter. I would vote for the former, myself. But I could be good with either of these.

To clarify: in the former, it takes 14 years to play every non-locked in team 7 times. In the latter, it "only" takes 11 years.


I guess I don't feel very strongly about a third rival, strictly speaking for us. I just want Wisc and Iowa for sure. I actually don't want to play Michigan every year. And I don't feel strongly about Nebraska as some maybe do.
 

Gophers_4life said:
https://theathletic.com/3732180/2022/10/26/big-ten-2023-schedule/

When USC and UCLA join the league in 2024, Big Ten and school officials not only will discuss its structure but the number of permanent opponents. The likely outcome is either three designated rivals and playing the other 12 schools twice every four years, or two rivals with a seven-game/11-year rotation.

@Ope3

Assume you'd choose the latter. I would vote for the former, myself. But I could be good with either of these.

To clarify: in the former, it takes 14 years to play every non-locked in team 7 times. In the latter, it "only" takes 11 years.


I guess I don't feel very strongly about a third rival, strictly speaking for us. I just want Wisc and Iowa for sure. I actually don't want to play Michigan every year. And I don't feel strongly about Nebraska as some maybe do.
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Yes, I would choose the 2 rivals seven-game/11-year rotation. The article does point out that it really is only Iowa that has 3 rivals it feels strongly about. Even AD Barta seems resigned to the fact there may have to be some give on that.

Even in that 2 rival scenario, there are 11 annual match ups that feel concocted forced marriages of sorts. I don't really see the reason for it to be so rigid, but ok...fine.
 

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